


Inherited

by omobot



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Established Relationship, M/M, copious angst with a hopeful ending, depression & survivor's guilt, implications of mutual codependency, it's complicated and not all good, magically-binding contract, mentions of violence/torture/casualties, shared emotions/sensations, tangential/repurposed canon spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-09
Updated: 2020-05-09
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:20:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24095749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/omobot/pseuds/omobot
Summary: They had been born to fulfill the prophesied rite of inheritance—to reclaim the divine power of their traitorous ancestors through combat. When the Archbishop deemed them ready, they were to receive holy relics with which to slay the Twelve, to secure lasting peace and prosperity for their respective bloodlines and their lands.There was no option for failure, but little did they know they were never meant to succeed.Claude saves Sylvain from a corrupted prophecy with a blood pact. Sylvain isn't sure he wants to be saved.
Relationships: Sylvain Jose Gautier/Claude von Riegan
Comments: 6
Kudos: 51





	Inherited

**Author's Note:**

> \+ The Twelve are comprised of the Elites (including Maurice), and Nemesis. Seiros was unable to vanquish them the first time around, only managing to seal them away for a thousand years. In this AU the Millennium Festival isn't to celebrate the completion of the monastery, but the (temporary) defeat of Nemesis and his army. (So the timeline is off from the original game by approximately a hundred years.)
> 
> \+ Byleth fuses with Sothis when they awaken the Sword of the Creator in this timeline, and also enters a coma in the process. Sorry, Professor.
> 
> \+ **Explores dark topics** including mutual codependency, obsession, possessiveness, and depression.
> 
> \+ Background Sylvain & Felix, not romantic but significant.

It begins with a blood-coated kiss. Claude's lips are a brand against Sylvain's, searing yet soft, his tongue tinged with magic and molten where it slides roughly against his own.

It isn't a gentle kiss. There's a sharp pain as teeth rip into his skin, the taste of copper stark and heavy in his mouth. He would frown if he weren't on the cusp of dying. If he weren't distracted by the scent of amber and spice, of white blossoms scattered by a wandering breeze.

Color briefly returns to his hair—it's coppery too, a red deeper than his natural shade, that dilutes like ink as it spreads across his locks and quietly fades. He feels a damp warmth against his cheeks—they might be tears. Sylvain blinks slowly, eyelids sluggishly working themselves open as heat floods through his veins, stoking his once fading pulse into a steady roil. He doesn't have enough presence of mind to kiss Claude back ( _Is he crying for him?_ ), still toeing the precipice between the living and the dead.

He can feel Claude's magic carving itself into his bones, desperately stitching his crumbling frame back together, a dull ache that coalesces into a lancing pain through his chest. It's a power both new and arcane, unfamiliar and welcome. He sees glimpses of water and sand, stone and marble, places he knows he's never been and yet somehow recognizes with startling intimacy. He gasps incoherently as his body seizes in agony, eyes prickling as his vision slowly blanches from shock.

It would be kinder to let him die, Sylvain thinks. He manages to latch his fingers weakly into Claude's sleeve, begging for salvation and not knowing which it is—revival or release. His consciousness begins to loll, mind losing its grasp on his body.

Claude only doubles down on their kiss, one hand gripping the recipient's jaw, the other pinned over his heart. Blood begins to pool under his palm where it's anchored to the center of Sylvain's chest, the thin bands of a crest emerging—the sickles of the Gautier emblem. More lines follow, arcing and twisting themselves into a new pattern entirely. Sweat beads along Claude's brow, his expression morphed from determination to a valiant grimace when he finally pulls away with a single, hoarse command.

" _Live._ "

Sylvain doesn't hear it, gone as soon as the kiss breaks.

\---

...It began a little earlier than that.

They had been conscripted to the Officers Academy six years prior. Crestbearers, descendants, and otherwise capable individuals were gathered at Garreg Mach by royal and sacred decree, given bows and blades and schooled in faith and reason. They were sent to slay demonic beasts as curricular exercises, their young minds and bodies relentlessly honed in durability and brutality. Their potential was shaped through academic and martial trial, in order to harness the power of the crests emblazoned on their souls.

With the approach of the Millennium Festival, there were only so many years left to prepare for the advent of calamity, the foretold resurrection of the Fell King and his Elites. It was said that the seal of Seiros—forged at the Tailtean Plains—would finally break after a thousand years, releasing ancient evil back into the world. Failure to defeat the Twelve would result in the destruction of Fodlan.

There was no option for failure, or so they were told.

For many of the students, their strict tutelage started when they were much younger.

_Blaiddyd, Riegan, Lamine, Goneril, Daphnel, Dominic.  
Gautier, Fraldarius, Gloucester, Charon, Maurice._

These descendants had been born to fulfill the prophesied rite of inheritance—to reclaim the divine power of their traitorous ancestors through combat. When the Archbishop deemed them ready, they were to receive holy relics with which to slay the Twelve, to secure lasting peace and prosperity for their respective bloodlines and their lands.

There was no option for failure, but little did they know there was no chance of victory, either.

They were never meant to succeed.

\---

_The sigil of The Moon, intertwined with that of Death, creates the illusion of life._

\---

Sylvain is living on borrowed time. He can feel it as soon as he wakes, the rhythm of a second heartbeat nestled against his own, so distinct it's difficult to interpret from physical sensation. Each pull of air into his lungs makes him lightheaded, a soothing warmth sluicing through his limbs that ought to be cooled and stiffening by now.

His eyes open, and when his ringing vision merges he finds Claude hovering above him, lips locked into a familiar grimace. (Has he been wearing that expression the entire time Sylvain's been out?)

"Missed you too," Sylvain croaks weakly, hand moving instinctively to nurse the acute ache lodged deep under his sternum. Claude shakes his head, catching Sylvain's wrist gently before his fingertips can disturb his fresh bandages. Sylvain takes hold of his hand instead, eliciting a steadying breath from the other man. He must be so tired, though even fatigue hardly ruins a face like his.

"Wasn't sure if it'd work," Claude says. "But I guess if we're both feeling like corpses, I did something right."

He doesn't quite smile despite the lightness of his tone, green eyes shadowed with the weight of far too much doubt. His insurmountable confidence seems shaken for once, leaving him uncharacteristically exposed, and Sylvain feels compelled to apologize. He squeezes Claude's fingers, and lets go.

His body already knows what's happened, but his mind needs a moment to catch up. To _digest_ the fact that he'd more or less shuffled off this mortal coil, and that he's more or less back on it for as long as Claude is.

_Crestbinding._ A blood pact tying soul to soul, a life to a life. It was a forbidden practice, though not remotely secret. He's known about it since he was a child, having snuck into his father's private collection of books on more than one occasion. He'd boasted about blood magic to Felix even, when they were too young to know any better.

_A promise to die together._

He hadn't understood, then, the nuance between bond and obligation, the lonely divide between dedication and duty. That certain affection didn't necessarily mean certain companionship.

It didn't matter anyway. Felix had been the one to go into death first, and far too many others after him.

Sometimes Sylvain wonders if he shouldn't have followed earlier. It would've been easier. Five years has been a long time to spend running from the Immaculate One. The surviving crestbearers were being hunted, one by one, and for five years they've been hiding, fighting, killing, losing.

The end began five years too early, when the descendants of the Twelve became host to the very misfortune they were meant to defeat, as secretly ordained by the Archbishop.

They hadn't been raised to fulfill some heroic destiny.

\---

It began when they were in the womb, blessed and cursed by their crests. They had been brought up as sacrificial lambs, to serve as physical vessels for the Elites when the time of resurrection arrived. A wraith couldn't be cut down, but once it was fully bound to flesh that body could then be destroyed with the holy relics. Without the restraint of a corporeal form, the Twelve would haunt Fodlan freely, spreading pestilence and turning men into demonic beasts.

The Archbishop had been waiting a millennia to complete her vengeance, and she required vessels strong enough to endure the mental and physical strain of fusion, a process that could be instant, or take years depending on the strength of one's blood and crest.

_Blaiddyd, Riegan, Lamine, Goneril, Daphnel, Dominic.  
Gautier, Fraldarius, Gloucester, Charon, Maurice._

The crest system was implemented to ensure the continuation of these treacherous bloodlines—the lasting supply of fodder under the guise of privilege and prestige. A direct descendant was ideal for the union of phantom to vessel, but a lesser crestbearer could potentially serve as substitute. The Academy was constructed to further temper and refine the nobility for her purpose, to herd them together under her watch.

The prospect of graduation was of little concern; they would return to Garreg Mach in five years' time as they were told, as was their birthright and duty. At the turning of the millennia they would enter the Holy Tomb to complete the rite of inheritance, the claiming of the power of their bloodlines—they would return for the sacred relics, believing they had a common enemy to fight. Believing it was an undead army of corpses they faced, not phantoms that would bind with their very flesh and bones.

Once the seal of Seiros expired, the handful of descendants bearing major crests would merge the quickest with their ancestral wraiths. They would gain enough power to rival the Immaculate One, and thus would be executed first. Those with minor crests would be imprisoned and sedated until their fusion was complete. The Goddess would purge the Twelve from Fodlan once and for all by blood and flame.

\---

When Byleth unknowingly awakened the Sword of the Creator, the timeline shifted, archaic power forcibly stirred within archaic sepulture. The seal of Seiros weakened. The wraiths of the dead, still five years premature in their revival, began to fuse with the living regardless; past calling to present, crest calling to crest.

The monastery had fallen into chaos.

Sylvain had seen Ingrid fall from her pegasus the day he escaped the monastery, and half a decade later he still remembers the sound of it. She had been broken, but they did not let her die, healing her with faith so they could reap her soul when it was appropriately ripe.

He remembers seeing her limp form on the ground, too far away to reach her, separated by rubble and smoke and panic. Felix had tried, had cut his way to her side. He had been the first of them to come into power, or so it appeared at the time, the lines of his major crest blazing behind his shoulders, suffusing him in harsh light. Sylvain hadn't recognized him at first, the swordsman's dark hair turned pale, _wraithlike_ as the mark of his completed fusion with a phantom.

Felix had been the first of them to challenge the Immaculate One, teeth bared and eyes ablaze. He had never asked for any part in any prophecy, scripted or not.

He had died for it anyway. Ingrid as well, and the others who had followed

Sylvain had planned to join the fallen once it was over. He had not anticipated his survival.

He was supposed to die. He _had_ , finally, after five years of faithless fleeing. He remembers Claude dragging him off their final battlefield, his hand pressed against the gash through his belly, keeping his insides from spilling out. Dealt by relic or no, the wound Sylvain had sustained was one no mortal should've survived—but they were no longer entirely human. Sylvain's hair and eyes had slowly lost their color over the last five years, as his body gradually attuned itself to the Gautier wraith inside him, its curse like winter inevitably settling over autumn in an icy chokehold, barring the passage of spring.

But Claude still looks like summer, hair stained dark with ink dyes, eyes as vibrant as ever.

_Illusion,_ Sylvain reminds himself. The sigil of The Moon, the badge of a trickster. He blinks down once again, remembering the feeling of heat spreading inside his chest, tangling and catching. A bloody kiss that tasted like thunder in his heart.

Claude had saved him. The escapees had been branded fugitives and monsters by the Church, given no sanctuary or mercy. Generous ransoms replaced the promise of glory, the influence of Seiros far more powerful than any individual noble. There was little left for either of them beyond this point, but Claude had dragged Sylvain's soul back from the flames anyway and tied it to his own.

That can't be right. Sylvain didn't bother hiding what he was, letting rumors spread like disease through whichever town he stepped foot in. He allowed himself to be chased, he fought like he wanted to die. Claude did everything he could to live, he schemed, lied and cheated and changed colors when needed. He lived through each season, while Sylvain resigned himself to an unending winter.

Claude did everything right, and this was not. _Sylvain_ was not right. But now Claude wears the same scar he does, under a similar set of bandages, the crest of Gautier and Riegan fused together and carved into the flesh between his ribs. A life for a life.

He's fated to misery, and Claude shouldn't be the one to share it.

Sylvain feels deeply ill, everything inside him at war with itself, an empty nausea belatedly but relentlessly pushing up his diaphragm.

"I'm going to puke," he warns his companion.

"I know," Claude answers, looking quite off-color himself.

\---

They both take a moment to wipe the spittle from their lips, to wash the sour taste of bile from their mouths. Neither have eaten in days, nothing left in their stomachs to empty.

"I couldn't let you die," Claude says quietly.

_I'm not worth saving_ , Sylvain thinks, loudly enough that Claude must have heard. _Not at that cost._

"I'm not sorry," Claude adds, sounding much more like himself. Even tethered to a dead man, he sounds unfazed, entirely reassured in his freedom. Unshackled to his own crest or to anyone else's, independent of prophecy or fate.

Sylvain wants his illusion. Claude is the lie he's always wanted to live, because for as long as Sylvain has been in this world, he has belonged to someone or something else. A prophesy, a bloodline, a lie.

Does he belong to Claude, now? Or is it the other way around?

"I thought you didn't believe in sacrifice," he murmurs.

His companion hums, taking his hand between his, pressing a kiss against his knuckles. "Not a sacrifice. A trade."

"Thought you didn't make careless deals," Sylvain amends, fingers twitching under the warmth of Claude's lips. He reaches past his loose hold to twist his fingers into his open collar.

"I don't," he smiles, the words so resolute it makes him falter.

"You're selfish," Sylvain continues, trying to latch onto something that isn't his own confliction. His face feels hot, almost feverish. He can't tell if he's upset or happy, can't distinguish the emotions that are and aren't his own. He's lost, alone despite the presence of another soul adjacent— _indentured_ to his own.

He's terrified.

"You're not wrong," Claude says softly, with quiet albeit unrelenting understanding. He doesn't budge, doesn't look away. He is a summer that doesn't fade, a color that can never be forgotten. "Aren't we all?"

_Selfish._

They had been born knowing they would be sent to battle, not knowing they themselves were the enemy. Their lives were to be given away either way, in service or sacrifice. They had been born to be selfless, to be denied and to deny themselves of their desires.

Sylvain is scared because Claude has given him something he's never been willing to ask for. His heart, his life, his soul, everything he hasn't been prepared to accept, doesn't know how to. And he's taken the very same from Sylvain.

He's afraid because he's _wanted_ it all, deep down in his core, the part of him unmarked by curses or blood pacts, by despair or even hope. He's wanted something to reach out to and claim as his own. He's afraid because for everything he's suffered, he still wants to live, and he doesn't know what that means.

Or maybe this is exactly what it means. Even if they're no longer human, they're still so fragile and weak, so susceptible to pain. So hungry and ravaged by guilt and still so desperate to live, and there's no place in this world for them to belong but each other. Selfishness always came with consequences, but there was no way to survive without it.

He's selfish enough to anchor himself to Claude, and he's always been.

\---

It began with curious glances, which soon devolved into knowing smirks. It began with a conversation over nothing, with an afternoon spent on weeding duty together, or maybe with that one shift in the stables. It might have began with a board game, a sparring match, or a lingering touch as they passed each other in the dormitory. Maybe it was a disagreement, a heated argument, a cold shoulder, a lost item begrudgingly returned on behest of their Professor.

Or, it began with a kiss that Sylvain shouldn't have given away, a kiss that Claude shouldn't have accepted. With restless hands and crumpled clothing, with an aching loneliness they were both desperate to simultaneously fill and suppress.

\---

It began when they fled the monastery five years ago, cheeks stained with blood and soot and tears, memories sullied with far worse. With the screams of their peers as they were captured and maimed to prevent their escape. The sensation of their own bodies losing shape as they were forcefully evicted from danger by Lysithea's magic, and the scent of charred flesh following them as the young mage proceeded to burn down half of Seiros' army with the very power they sought to contain and destroy. The fear compelling the escapees to crawl upright, to run, knowing that magic could just as easily drag them back.

It began as they wandered the continent on their own for the next half decade, while the Empire waged war against the Goddess and her ilk. While the Church took control of the Holy Kingdom and sent swords and shadows to track down crestbearers, to be brought back to the sacred mausoleum for ceremonial execution. While the Ashen Demon slept an induced slumber, also entombed beneath the monastery under the Archbishop's ever watchful eye. While the remaining descendants of the Elite slowly made their way back to Garreg Mach under the banner of their lords, a reunion filled with too few faces and too much grief.

\---

It ends when they finally slay the Immaculate One. When the monastery collapses from structural damage, burying soldiers, golems and saints, their beloved comrades and unwoken Professor.

It ends with blood and sorrow, a mortal wound and a binding kiss. The scent of amber, spice and white blossoms scattered by a wandering breeze.

\---

It begins again with Sylvain's lips against Claude's. A soft and tentative brush, unlike how he's ever kissed him before. He can feel Claude tremble, and knows he's touched by the same anxiety, wary of the raw vulnerability they're not remotely ready to share, this burden of intimacy that may be too heavy for even two sets of shoulders to carry. He can feel Claude accepting him anyway, pulling him closer, pliant and insistent as Sylvain deepens their kiss. It's clumsy, perfect, guarded, honest.

"Please live," Claude asks a second time, a whisper against his mouth. He doesn't give him a command, he gives him a choice.

"No promises," Sylvain says, but he kisses him again and he means _I'm scared._ He means _I'll try._

He realizes that Claude has been waiting for him to understand he _isn't_ an illusion—that he isn't the moon or the sun, a metaphor or an idealization. That he's as real and fractured as Sylvain is, scarred flesh and ragged breath, love and loneliness and everything in between. Smooth and solid under his fingertips, sweet and sacred against his mouth.

He realizes that Claude hasn't only given Sylvain his very heart to keep Sylvain's pumping, but ensure his own beats as well, because Sylvain is as perfect to him in his brokenness as he is to Sylvain.

\---

It begins with an unspoken promise to move on, to reclaim and to rebuild. To endure and to love, to weep and to embrace. A promise of gratitude. _A promise to live together._

**Author's Note:**

> I was more interested in exploring emotions and relationship dynamics vs. anything else, so the rest has been left as a vague concept in the backdrop. Additional idea dump:
> 
> \+ Tarot/arcana elements thrown in for aesthetic, please don't think too hard on it...
> 
> \+ Claude and Sylvain did run into each other (as well as their surviving classmates) a few times during their five years on the run, though they always separated shortly. Safer to escape detection that way.
> 
> \+ Lysithea and Edelgard were fused with the spirits of Gloucester and Nemesis respectively from an early age, though their powers manifested much more slowly due to the artificial process involved. Edelgard has been planning to overthrow the Church, and Lysithea has been helping her in secret.
> 
> \+ Those Who Slither in the Dark are still very much in the background. They've also been waiting for the prophecy as a chance to resurrect Nemesis and his army, and have also been tracking and capturing the surviving crestbearers during the five-year timeskip (unknown to the survivors, who only knew the Church was after them). Their plans to use Edelgard fell through, as she turned on them, so they're targeting Byleth next as they need the Crest of Flames.
> 
> \+ In the purely hypothetical epilogue, the survivors band together to take out Those Who Slither in the Dark and find a way to rescue and wake Byleth, who's still sleeping in a stone coffin underneath the ruins of Garreg Mach.
> 
> THANK YOU BIGDROOL FOR BETA <3


End file.
